A decade after her death, is the age of emotionalism at an end?

Ten years on, there is still something dreamlike about the week that followed the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Was central London really carpeted with flowers? Did every U.S. TV network throw out its schedule to cover, at length, the funeral of an English divorcé of uncertain prospects? Did the most levelheaded folk you know choke up about 10 times that week, snuffling into their tissues, "I can't imagine why it's gotten to me so much"?

Yes, and yes, and they probably did. To be sure, quite soon after Diana's death, a school of thought argued that the raw hugs-and-tears...